Persona Producer explains why most of the protagonists are male students

Summary

  • The male protagonists of the Persona series reflect the theme of growing up in coming-of-age stories – the high school years symbolize the transition into adulthood.
  • Producer Kazuhisa Wada explains that male protagonists in Persona games reflect the perception of female students' advanced mental age and maturity.
  • Fans are suggesting that the next Persona game could feature an older protagonist as the series evolves with the player base; Potential for college age characters.



Over the many years persona Since the series began, some fans have wondered why the majority of the games' protagonists are male students, and the producer has now given an answer. This trend continued persona's latest entry, Persona 5which took the world by storm upon its release.

persona is a popular RPG series that grew out of the original Megami Tensei games. Since both series continued in parallel, persona almost always had a male protagonist, with the exception of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Persona 3 PortableAnd Persona 3's epilogue. However, also in Persona 3 portablethe female protagonist is technically non-canon to the series, meaning the only non-male and non-student protagonists are from this series Persona 2: Eternal Punishment And Persona 3's epilogue.


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Now the producer of the persona series, Kazuhisa Wada, explained why this is so. At the CEDEC + KYUSHU 2024 conference, Wada said that the persona Games are supposed to be coming-of-age stories and focus on growing up. For this reason, the majority of high school students are selected persona The mapping between protagonists and party members just makes sense, since the middle and high school years are typically the time when people start to get a taste of adult life.


What about the gender of the persona protagonists?

As for the gender of the protagonists, Wada said that this was mainly due to the perceived differences in the mental maturity of girls and boys. Wada noted that female high school students tend to have a “higher mental age,” or be more mature, than their male counterparts. This gives the males more room to grow and develop, making them a better choice for the protagonist in this context. Against this background, Wada notes that it is not excluded that the protagonists of the games are either women or non-students.


At the moment it remains to be seen whether Persona 6 will shake up this common pattern of the series. Many players have asked for an older one persona Protagonist, perhaps because the fan base that has accompanied the series since the beginning has itself gotten older. Based on Wada's argument, there is still room for adults to continue to grow and mature throughout their lives. For example, a college or post-college aged protagonist could be an interesting setting.

But unfortunately Persona 5 Since the series is now eight years old, there is still no precise information about a sixth main part of the series. However, Atlus has kept fans of the fifth entry busy with the introduction Persona 5 Royalan expansion of the original game's story, Persona 5: Dancing in the Starlight, Persona 5 Strikers, Persona 5 Tacticaland even one Persona 5 Mobile game.

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